How Much Does Surrogacy Cost Gay Men?

Most gay couples know that surrogacy costs are substantial. But just how steep is the price tag?

The short answer: It won't be cheap. The average cost of a surrogacy journey in the United States is roughly $120,000. However, the total cost can vary greatly depending on a number of factors. Below are some of the common costs associated with a successful surrogacy journey for gay men:

Egg Donation: $10,000 -$15,000

You can expect to spend around $15,000 to participate in an egg donor program at your agency. This fee will cover the costs of screening, evaluating, and compensating your egg donor, as well as associated legal fees. Costs may be higher, however, if you choose to work with an experienced egg donor, or if you need to cover any travel-related costs.

Gestational Carrier Costs: $40,000-$80,000

Your "gestational carrier" is the woman who will carry your baby (check out this article for a full list of important terms related to surrogacy). Reputable surrogacy agencies in the United States generally compensate their gestational surrogates upwards of $30,000-$40,000. The total you will be responsible for depends on a number of factors, however, including: the state she lives in and whether or not she is a first time gestational carrier. (Experienced carriers typically get paid more.) If your gestational carrier does not have health insurance, the fee for a gestational carrier can be considerably higher, which explains the drastic difference in price possibilities.

Agency Fees: $25,000-$30,000

Many surrogacy agencies will charge upwards of $30,000 for their services. This cost can considerably lower, however, if you only require the services of their egg donor program, or only need to be matched with a gestational carrier.

IVF Procedure: $15,000-$25,000

These fees cover the costs associated with creating and transferring embryos to your gestational carrier via In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). (While some health insurers cover the costs of IVF for heterosexual couples who are experiencing infertility, this benefit has not yet been extended to same-sex couples in most instances.)

Legal Fees: $5,000-10,000

These fees help cover the costs associated with the legal proceedings that help establish your parental rights.

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Shocked by the prices? You aren't alone! Fortunately, there are some options for gay men and couples to bring down the surrogacy costs. Men Having Babies, for instance, offers grants to prospective gay dads who can't afford the full cost of becoming biological parents on their own. Most surrogacy agencies also partner with lenders, who can talk with you about different loan opportunities to afford the procedure. Lastly, many gay men have successfully crowd-funded the money they need to help them afford the journey. Get some tips for starting your own crowd-funded campaign here.

Jamie and Kenny have been all over the world. To be precise, they have traveled to 66 countries. So far, they hasten to add. And they used to live in London. But in their own minds, they are still two small-town country boys from Louisiana.

Their story together started in 1992, when both men were young students (Jamie was born in 1974, Kenny is just six months older) from similar backgrounds at the same university in Louisiana. A mutual friend introduced them at a cafeteria, and they hit it off.

They hailed from very small and very religious communities that disapproved of homosexuality. Without any positive role models, Jamie and Kenny had internalized those negative views: The way they looked at their own lives, they assumed they would lead lives of ridicule, be unwilling to commit to one partner, would contract HIV and soon after die of AIDS.

As mentioned in our previous blog it was a shock to find out that we will be expecting twins later on this year. It had taken some getting used to idea but now we are counting down the last few months before we can welcome our twin girls into the family.

Both Marc and I knew we always wanted to have more than one child, the main reason for this was so our first (Spencer) always had some company, someone to play with and so he never felt like he was alone. From around the age of three Spencer has been asking about having a sibling, we knew this day would come as inevitably he was going to have friends who had siblings, so at some point he was going to question why he was an only child. We always said we wanted to have as small of an age gap as possible but unfortunately this did not happen for various reasons. Not that it makes that much difference to us now, in fact we believe it has worked out better this way, with Spencer being that little bit older and more independent he can be a lot more involved with the care of his sisters. He is already telling us that he will help us by getting them nappies and wipes.

This article is part of our family feature series with Circle Surrogacy, a surrogacy agency that has been helping LGBTQ+ singles and couples realize their dream of parenthood for the past 20 years.

"On our third date, Jeff and I discussed our desire to become parents someday, so we've always wanted to be dads," said Freddie. Jeff and Freddie Beisler-Snell met through a mutual friend and have been together 13 years, married for three. Right from the very beginning, they saw fatherhood as part of their future. In May 2019, they welcomed their son Jace via surrogacy.

When Jeff, 40, and Freddie, 36, started their journey, they began looking into adoption. Although they both yearned for a biological connection to their future kids, they didn't know much about surrogacy, or if it was a viable option for them. After doing a little more research, they attended a Gay Parents To Be event, sponsored by RMA of Connecticut taking place in Atlanta. "This event was great because it opened our eyes up to the entire surrogacy process," said Freddie. "After the event, we did some additional research on potential agencies and IVF doctors. We ended up narrowing down our search, and landed on Circle Surrogacy as our agency, and RMA-CT for our IVF clinic."

My husband, Phil, and I talked about having children since out first date over 11 years ago. Like many other gay dads, we waited to start the journey to become parents until we felt secure with our careers, finances, and home life. This meant we didn't start the partnering journey until 2016 when we were eight years into our relationship.

When we first met, I was completing my graduate studies in social work and subsequently started a career working in foster care and adoption. This made our decision to pursue foster care-adoption as our path to parenthood a fairly easy one. In fact, I can't recall us discussing other avenues to parenthood, but I'm sure we briefly discussed them before solidifying our decision to become foster parents.

Guest post by Stephanie Haynes, the executive director of Philadelphia Family Pride

On Saturday, October 5, 2019, Philadelphia Family Pride will hold their 10th Annual Family Matters Conference from 9am to 3:30pm for LGBTQ parents, prospective parents and their kids of all ages at the University of the Sciences in West Philadelphia. The theme this year is "Telling Our Stories." Registration is now open!

In an interactive keynote, Anndee Hochman, author of the Philadelphia Inquirer's weekly "Parent Trip" column, will share highlights from her work as a journalist and memoirist. She'll invite conversation about the stories that shape us—what tales do we share? who does the telling? who is left out?—and how those stories, added up, are changing the world. Read her bio.

The homestudy is the first step in the adoption process. In every state the homestudy is done a little differently, but all of them have the some combo of paperwork, trainings, and interviews. The homestudy can take anywhere from 2 months to 6 months to complete. Without it, you cannot adopt.